Left-wing theology | Hanfried Müller: For the life of people in this world

In the memory of left-wing contemporaries from the "Over 55" generation, Hanfried Müller is the father of the "Weißenseer Blätter", a journal of left-wing theologians, which was founded in 1982 in the GDR and published until 2006.

Together with his wife Rosemarie Müller-Streisand, Müller was also the longtime host of a monthly discussion group in the "Karlshorster Keller" in Berlin, which was also known as the "Left Roundtable." The theology professor Müller demonstrated—not only here—his strength in resisting all pressure to conform after 1989 and fearlessly "representing a minority when the majority becomes misguided," as one student put it.

He was born in the respectable home of a senior judge; his mother was shaped by the Hanseatic patrician spirit and was artistically active. Hans-Friedrich – as his name appears on his baptismal certificate from 1925 – grew up in a conservative environment, joined the Confessing Church's (BK) student Bible study group, and after a so-called wartime emergency high school diploma in 1943, was sent as a radio operator to the Italian front, where he was captured by partisans.

In his memoirs, Müller describes the years 1945 to 1949 as the decisive phase in his development from a conservative anti-Nazi to a revolutionary anti-fascist. In that sense, "history began for me on [May 8th] – as a sphere of responsibility, not as a collection of data." In the prisoner-of-war camp near Naples, he adhered to the consistent, Dahlem wing of the Confessing Church, represented by the names Martin Niemöller and Karl Barth. Upon his release, his decision to study theology was firm. His actual studies began "with the summer semester of 1946, when Karl Barth [from Switzerland] arrived in Bonn on a Rhine steamer for his first guest semester after the war." Barth and Hans-Joachim Iwand became Müller's most important teachers.

Why these two? They were the ones being asked about their guilt in the church's misguided path, not about cheap excuses for "complicity." It was clear: the official church, with its anti-communism and anti-Semitism, had, to put it mildly, moved very close to the official Nazi enemy image (against Marxists and Jews), and this extended far into the ranks of the Confessing Church. Inspired by Barth and Hans Joachim Iwand, the groundbreaking "Darmstadt Word" of the left wing of the Confessing Church was published in 1947, containing the confession: "We went astray when we overlooked the fact that the economic materialism of Marxist doctrine should have reminded the Church of its mission [...] for the lives of people in this world." It was this insight that Müller rigorously upheld and which, a decade and a half later in the GDR, led to the statement that "we do not approach non-Christian society with fear or hatred, but with helpfulness and prudence," as stated in the "Seven Propositions" of the Weißensee working group "From the Freedom of the Church to Service."

The sentence is inspired by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Müller's doctoral dissertation in 1956 was the first comprehensive presentation of Bonhoeffer's theology, the relationship of the Word of God to society . It was published as a book in 1961 under the title "From Church to World"—and formed the basis for Müller's appointment to the theological faculty of Humboldt University in Berlin. For about three decades, he taught systematic theology, which encompassed the subfields of dogmatics and ethics. To the accusation that he was a "dogmatist," Müller could calmly reply: "That's precisely what I was called to do."

The statement "he taught for three decades" needs clarification. In the early years, there was a veritable student boycott of his lectures, partly due to malicious whispers emanating from church circles. Among the more hostile elements of the official church, he was referred to as the "court theologian of the GDR." The number of misinformation and rumors about Müller, some originating from the East German CDU, was considerable: he was supposedly a secret member of the SED (Socialist Unity Party). Margot Honecker had allegedly been a patron of the founding of the "Weißensee Papers." He was said to be advocating the "dissolution of the church under communism" or to want to make the church socialist. In response to the latter point, he wrote in the third volume of the journal "Blätter" in 1984: "The Church should not take a pro-socialist stance, but rather it should refrain from any ecclesiastical legitimation of imperialism (which, of course, seems to take it for granted that the Church supports it)." This was directed at the Church in Germany, which had warmly embraced the imperialist project of the European Union from the outset. Since the 1990s, the journal "Blätter" has criticized it as a project of market-radical economics and permanent rearmament.

Müller never bothered the SED with a membership application, and that was a good thing. Because of this, the "Weißensee Papers" could be created and published without party censorship, without regard for the "church policy line" of the State Secretary for Church Affairs. Incidentally, one also heard the sidelong remark that Müller had little more than a handful of friends in the church. Anyone who looks at the commemorative publication for his 80th birthday (Berlin 2006, edited by Dieter Kraft) will find a multitude of friendly tributes from both church and world.

The aforementioned "Seven Propositions on the Freedom of the Church to Serve," adopted in 1963 and largely formulated by Müller, were the most important outcome of the Weißensee Working Group; it was an anti-clerical policy paper. The accompanying correspondence, incidentally, reveals no claim by Müller to intellectual property. Even later, in his "Evangelical Dogmatics" (Berlin 1978)—in which he quotes and comments on the aforementioned propositions—there is no mention of his contribution to their drafting.

Neither complacent nor sycophantic, neither pretentious nor boastful, but unpretentious and occasionally self-deprecating – that's how I remember him. During one of our conversations, in which Hanfried Müller shared an interesting insight with me, I asked him how his thesis should be properly substantiated with sources: by citing his name? He replied defensively: If a viable idea were circulated, that would be honor enough for him; he could easily do without mentioning his name. (In the 1990s, Müller described his former connection to the Stasi in the "Blätter" as "voluntary social activity" – Ed.)

The aforementioned autobiography ("Experiences – Memories – Thoughts: On the History of Church and Society in Germany since 1945," published in 2010) breaks off in 1973. Hanfried Müller died on March 3, 2009, before its completion. However, the entire Müller/Müller-Streisand estate has recently been cataloged and made available at the Evangelical State Archives in Berlin. This corpus, which is said to consist of 85 percent correspondence and also includes a number of letters to the editor of "Neues Deutschland," could one day provide a continuation for the autobiography.